Jens Agerström

Jens Agerström is professor of psychology. The main fields of research are social psychology, work- and organizational psychology, and behavioral economics. Jens earned his PhD from Lund University in 2009 and has held a tenure at Linnaeus University since 2012.

Research

Agerström's research often adopts a multidisciplinary approach. He collaborates with researchers in economics, health care sciences, and medicine. 

Primary research focus lies on discrimination in the labor market and the health care system, based on factors such as ethnicity, gender, and socioeconomic status. A central theme of this research is the role of implicit and explicit bias in discrimination. To understand how such biases play out in organizational settings, the research combines methods from both social psychology and behavioral economics.

Jens' research also concerns diversity issues more generally. One project examines the effectiveness of different interventions aimed to increase diversity within organizations and in conjunction with recruitment.

Another area of interest concerns social norms and their impact in various contexts, such as charitable giving, vaccination intentions, and parental leave.

An additional line of research concerns effects of physical pain (both acute and chronic) on various forms of cognition (e.g., abstract thinking) as well as how cognition influences perceptions of pain.

One final example of research concerns psychological distance (e.g., temporal distance) and its impact on moral judgment and behavior.